At least 13 people were killed and 52 others injured after heavy rains triggered flash floods in several districts of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province over the weekend, officials said Monday.
The provincial disaster management authority said the latest fatalities brought the total death toll in the province since Aug. 15 to 409, with another 251 people injured. Among the dead were 305 men, 55 women and 49 children, it said.
The floods and rain have destroyed 578 houses and partially damaged nearly 3,000 others across the province.
In Dera Ismail Khan, strong winds and heavy rain killed eight people and injured 48 others on Saturday night, local officials said. In Lower Dir, three children were killed when a house collapsed, while one death was reported in Mardan and another in Upper Kohistan.
The storms also caused widespread damage to power lines, solar panels and public infrastructure. Winds reaching up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour uprooted trees, toppled walls and ripped the roofs off houses, leaving parts of the province in darkness after feeders collapsed and the power system shut down.
Authorities said five of the victims were residents of Dera tehsil and three were from Paharpur tehsil. In Muryali, a wall of Jamia-tul-Madina seminary collapsed, damaging a solar plant but causing no casualties.
Hospitals in the affected districts have been placed on emergency footing to treat the wounded. Dera Commissioner Zafarul Islam Khattak urged residents to avoid unnecessary travel during storms and ordered all available resources to be used for medical relief.
